Mel’s Kitchen Cafe: Redesigned!

It’s here! You guys, it’s here! My new look, er, I mean, my website’s new look has officially launched and as you are reading this, I’m doing heel kicks and high fives in my 1-inch square kitchen. Seriously. I’m just so giddy about it. I’m pretty sure I have a dorky perma-grin plastered on my face and it may be here all week.

This whole makeover has been a long time in coming. For the last five years, I’ve designed and managed the look of my blog by my very untrained self, which meant thousands of google searches to get it how I wanted and a lot of trial and error (so sorry about all those times I broke my website while you were trying to search for your favorite cookie recipe). But I knew that finally it was time to hand over the design reigns to people far more knowledgeable and trained than I. Enter, Melissa and Erin of Wooden Spoons Kitchen.Simply put, not only are these ladies uber-talented (bloggers/designers/website technicians) but they happen to be two of the nicest people I’ve ever met {as in, virtually met, of course} and have responded to my freak outs and questions with true grace and patience. Their efforts have surpassed my expectations by miles and I am so, so happy with how it all turned out.

Please make note that my pretty lil’ website is going to look smokin’ hot in Chrome or Firefox browsers. Any wonky behavior noticed in Internet Explorer can be avoided by using one of the aforementioned browsers.

Feel free to take a look around the place.

Here are a few highlights in addition to it’s beauty:

-All the recipes are still here in the beautiful new recipe index(I appreciate your longsuffering patience as I’m still going through many of my old archived posts to update images which will allow the Recipe Index to function perfectly!).

-The recipe format is printable, saveable to Ziplist and as cute as can be.

-On each post, the images have a sweet little Pin It button so if you hover over them, you’ll see the adorableness therein.

-The sidebar to the right still houses social media links, popular posts and a few other goodies.

-Did you check out the footer? Love.

-And get a load of the awesome search bar in the header. I’m pretty sure my life is complete with that one. In fact, the search bar is probably the best tool on this site to find a recipe you are looking for so don’t be afraid to use it and use it often.

I really hope you love the new look as much as I do.Thank you, Melissa and Erin!

It is a good day. The end.

P.S. Stay tuned this week for the most outrageous dessert I’ve ever made and a giveaway to celebrate all this makeover craziness!

120 Responses to Mel’s Kitchen Cafe: Redesigned!

Your new site is great. I was hoping you could help me as I have been hunting for a recipe I am sure I got from your site several months ago. I have looked all over your site and cannot find it. Of course I cannot remember the name but it was a pasta recipe, ground beef, a red sauce topped with a white alfredo sauce (from a jar). It was a great recipe and again I was hoping you could help me out. Thanks as always.

Hi Mel! I love your new design and the new index. I don’t seem to be able to enlarge the recipes on my iPad. My eyes aren’t what they used to be and I need all the help I can get with a little larger print. Thanks for all your hard work, you’re awesome!

I love the new look!! I think it suits you well. :-). Also like seeing a picture! And you were right to warn us about the site being down last weekend, because low and behold, I went to look up your funeral potatoes recipe on Sunday – only to be reminded that the site was down!! So glad your back online!

Hi Lucy – I’m hoping to add the printing with pictures functionality back in during the next few months but won’t do it until readers can have the ability to choose whether to print with picture or without (because the majority of readers don’t want a picture – over 600 people responded to a question I asked on Facebook and only 5-10% want to be able to print with a picture). Right now I can only do either/or. So I’m working on pleasing everyone but it might take time. I’m not sure what you mean by middle mouse click, I’m afraid – I can right click and select “open in new tab” – will that work for you?

Thanks for your reply Mel, I used to not print pictures too but recently changed my tune, especially since your pictures are so great. Looking forward to it returning but until then I’ll settle for none. Sorry for the confusion about the “middle mouse click”, what I meant was if you mouse over a link and then press the middle mouse button (usually done by clicking/pressing the scroll wheel) then that link should open up in a new tab automatically. I guess it’s not a big deal if you’ve disabled it for some reason since you can right click and select the open new tab option…I’m just lazy Thanks for all your effort on the site, I’ve made and loved so many of your recipes!

Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year. Later versions were available as free downloads, or in service packs, and included in the OEM service releases of Windows 95 and later versions of Windows.-.”`